Help with olympic colours

[alan cottrill]

Hi Clavel9.
I know the names of 8 of the 10 aircraft they had,the only 2 i dont know the names of are listed earlier in this post,it may be that they leased 2 to replace the ones that crashed,and may bare the same names,but this is just a wild guess on my part.
Its the fonts that are giving trouble,they do not match fully the modern or ancient greek alphabet,i have reasonable pics of about 3 of the aircraft to act as a guide,but unless you have pics,then me knowing nothing about greek,trying to work out the pronouncetion,is not easy,i even got hold of an electronic translator,hoping that would help,but it only seems to do lower case,bit of a bummer is that.
Regards alan.

[clavel9]

Hi Clavel9.
I know the names of 8 of the 10 aircraft they had,the only 2 i dont know the names of are listed earlier in this post,it may be that they leased 2 to replace the ones that crashed,and may bare the same names,but this is just a wild guess on my part.
Its the fonts that are giving trouble,they do not match fully the modern or ancient greek alphabet,i have reasonable pics of about 3 of the aircraft to act as a guide,but unless you have pics,then me knowing nothing about greek,trying to work out the pronouncetion,is not easy,i even got hold of an electronic translator,hoping that would help,but it only seems to do lower case,bit of a bummer is that.
Regards alan.

Like I said, the chances are these were hand-painted letters not a "font" as such. If I was doing it I'd draw them up in a vector graphics application. (e.g.: Illustrator) Time consuming but worth it. You might be able to build up a picture of letters by searching on any of the airline photo databases for Olympic aircraft of the 60s/70s but I'm sure you've thought of that! Greek for island is "NESI" (nu-epsilon-sigma-iota). http://translate.google.ie/translate_t# ... KEFALLONIA

[alan cottrill]

Hi All.
Below is a template i have done,of what i think the eight names sould look like,that sould be on the nose of the olympic aircraft.
I had pics for 4 of the 8 aircraft to go by.
If anyone knows if these are correct or not,then please let me know.
I know they leased 2 SX-BBJ/SX-BBM which dont appear to have any nose names listed against them,olympic owned 8 aircraft 2 of which had fatal crashes BBQ in 1972 & BBR in 1976.
Olympic named all 8 after islands,and i think that BBJ & BBM may have been replacements for those that crashed,and may sport the same island names of BBQ & BBR.
BBG=island of kephalonia (used a pic as a guide)
BBH=island of ithaca
BBI=island of samothraki (used a pic as a guide)
BBK=island of zakynthos (used a pic as a guide)
BBL=island of delos (used a pic as a guide)
BBP=island of andros
BBQ=island of kalymnos
BBR=island of milos


Regards Alan.

[ianhind]

Alan

Note what clavel9 wrote about the name being English on one side and Greek on the other.

SX-BBJ and SX-BBM were leased from NAMC before the arrival of the others and hence were not replacements for the crashed ones. And indeed they were both returned to NAMC (in 1970) once the Olympic ones started to be delivered.

Hence it is possible that they were never named since there stay was temporary as shown here:
http://www.williamdemarest.com/images/Olympic/oa-27.jpg

The final letter of the Greek for "Isle" is more stylised than shown in your template - it should be the same as the last letter on this Skyvan [Isle of Patmos]

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Olympic/ ... 0282669/L/
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Olympic/ ... 1178769/L/

Ian

[alan cottrill]

Hi Ianhind.
Thanks for the input,on the two leased aircraft,that would explain why there was no name against them.
As for the last letter,i see what you mean,its a bit like an m on its side.
regards alan.

[clavel9]

You have used an uppercase delta (D - the triangle) in place of an uppercase alpha (A). Uppercase alpha is the same as our (Roman) capital A. Looking up each island name on wikipedia will give you the correct Greek spelling though it has to be noted there is some regional variation in spelling.

I do have a Greek friend who might be able to help here though I haven't been in touch for a while. I'd assume for now that the wikipedia spellings are correct though.

[ianhind]

It is all a bit subtle the difference between the stylised Alpha and the Delta.

On this A340 (MARATHON) the Alpha is perhaps slightly clearer - it is the letter A with the cross part lower on the left side.
http://www.planepictures.net/show.php?id=840749

I will try to sort put the letter formats here later.

Ian

[alan cottrill]

Hi All.
Yep those styalised fonts+ out of focus pics i was using,made me think they where delta instead of alpha.
With your comments,and clear pics of other aircraft,i have modified my template,it is shown below,i hope this is correct,as this greek is all double dutch to me.


regards alan.

[clavel9]

I found this and thought it might help with colours. You can just about make out the letters on the nose too.

http://www.airlinercafe.com/page.php?id=129

[ianhind]

Alan

Those latest versions look pretty good. I would just question whether Kefalonia should have an "O" after the two "L" - what is your source picture?

And I just found the discussion on the AFG website - I don't believe the model of SX-BBG which shows the Greek version in that view is correct. That side should be in English.

And that model confirms my first comment - note the "H" at the end of the name should be an "O" - all in Greek letters of course.

Ian